Corporate innovation accelerator & startup, The Bakery, unveils the UK’s most promising new app at the final of the The App Factor competition

Mar 17, 2017

Corporate innovation accelerator and startup, The Bakery London, was one of six judges deciding the fate of the UK’s best apps in London yesterday at the final of The App Factor. VRTU, a virtual reality company for social impact, scooped first prize - meaning they’ll be able to develop their app and get free support to help build their business, thanks to app development company, iOasys.

VRTU won 700 hours of design and development, equivalent to £20K from iOasys. The company, which produces VR content specifically tailored to provide caregivers and patients therapeutic resources to combat symptoms of dementia, will also receive mentoring by The Startup Kitchen and General Standards law firm, access to workshops from The London Business School and access to the Alpha Card from F6S.

Says Arfa Rehman and Scott Gorman of VRTU: "We are truly delighted to be the winners of App Factor and can’t wait to work with iOasys to develop our app."

Second place went to Alex and Steph from Go Sweat (where you can find, compare and book every sporting activity imaginable), winning a new website from South Five, mentoring by The Startup Kitchen and General Standards law firm, access to workshops from The London Business School and access to the Alpha Card from F6S.

Third place went to Baptiste and Donatas from Dymmo - a simple "ride anytime" business linked with an app that enables you to grab a bike, use it and leave it anywhere (the bikes have a GPS seal which locks and unlocks via an app). They’ve won mentoring by The Startup Kitchen and General Standards law firm, access to workshops from The London Business School and access to the Alpha Card from F6S.

The App Factor also ran a public vote via a live poll with Mulalo unveiled as the winner (gaining 400 out of the total 1,200 votes). Mulalo saves money for you automatically and uses machine learning technology to discover further savings opportunities. They will receive a professional photo shoot by Nuraan Ackers who was the photographer for the grand final.

App development company iOasys partnered with innovation thought-leader, The Bakery. They have spent the last 3 months researching 100 of the best app ideas, with many coming from the areas of Virtual Reality and IOT. The Bakery specialises in helping small technology start-ups to find a market and bring their ideas to reality, by helping them partner with larger companies for mutual benefit.

Each aspiring app company had three minutes to deliver a pitch to a selection of judges including Andrew Humphries, Co-Founder of The Bakery, London, Emma Jones, founder of Enterprise Nation, Leo Castellanos, Investment Director at SAATCHiNVEST, and Paolo Cuneo, Programme director at EY.